Dreams Can't Live Forever
by www-dot-com
Summary: Hermione is not quite the person that everyone thinks she is. She had so many secrets that she never planned to tell anyone ever again. what happens when someone knows her secret and it's someone that she never thought would care enough to keep it. HGDM
1. Prologue

A/N – Ok this is only the prologue if you like it I'll keep posting… please review.

I do not own Harry Potter

Hermione Granger walked through the spider web of white marble hallways in that made up her family's old mansion. She walked slowly grazing her fingers along the dusty walls. The large estate seemed so empty and open. It was just as beautiful to her as it was when her father was there with her, when she was small.

Hermione came to the end of the corridor and into the unused ballroom that had been covered in a layer of dust ever since her father had gone. She put her arms up in the air, as if dancing with an imaginary partner. She twirled and glided around the great room with graceful steps. Dancing as she had then, without thinking she just let herself float across the floor. And then she was there again in her father's embrace, he was holding her like he did that last dance. It was perfect and she was 9 years old again.

She continued to dance through her past and over the memories she missed the most. She could remember all of the days that they had spent in the beautiful ballroom, her father teaching her to dance. She could she herself as clearly as if in a window looking through time, Spinning in circles with her arms spread wide and her head thrown back, laughing and smiling with the man standing in front of her.

Hermione slowed and put her arms down, sighing deeply. When she had laughed like that last, she didn't know. It had been so long since she had been truly happy. It had been at least 8 years since her face had been graced with that smile. It had been 8 years since the contentment she felt as a child had been replaced with emptiness. Every breath that she took after that moment was one more he wasn't. Every step she took seemed to put that much more distance between the present where she was alive and the place where she could finally be anything but left behind.

_FLASHBACK:_

_"Hermione Granger?" _

_"Yes, that's me…" Hermione stood from her chair in the quiet waiting room and walked up to the __nurse who had called__ her__ name_

_"Oh… h- how__ old __are__ you?__ Did you come alone; your mother… is she around?__" The nurse looked __around the room and then __down at her in surprise, ob__viously expecting to locate her supervision somewhere nearby_

_"Actually I'm nine today… my mother's busy, I just wanted to come and visit a few minutes… " Hermione tailed off__almost embarrassed at how pathetic she must sound_

_"Oh no…" The nurse muttered under her breath this time__ then focused back on Hermione "Where__ is your mother__ exactly__?"_

_"She…well…__ she had some house work to do and said they would let me come for a little while. I come a lot so they recognized me__…" Hermione stumbled over her words making an excuse yet again for her absent mother._

_"Um…" the woman studie__d her again "I guess I haven't much__of a __choice then, come with me." She turned and beckoned Hermione to follow._

_Hermione could feel it, something was wrong. This time was __different;__ they were going to tell her something. She followed __the nurse shakily with a hesitant__ expression. The woman stopped outside her father's door and kneeled to her level._

_"I…Oh God…I'm so sorry…It's even your birthday…your father…he, this morning he…" The nurse __fumbled with her words then __bit her lip in frustration__ Hermione could tell already, she saw it in the woman's eyes now. The look that everyone gave her when they found out her father was sick. This time though it was worse she knew this time it was __the beginning of the end__. A tear slid down her cheek and she turned her head nodding to show she understood._

_"Can I see him one more time… alone, please?" Hermione still couldn't look at the woman in front of her fo__r fear of seeing the look in her eyes again_

_"Of course you may…" the nurse stood and turned "you can go in its open, take as long as you like… I'm really very sorry…" her voice faded as she walked away._

_Hermione opened the door slowly, she wanted to remember everything she could__ she wanted to always remember the last time. She stepped inside and looked around. The room was the same as it was since nearly a year before, the same as it had always been. The breeze blew the curtains lightly like flowing silk in front of the open windows. The fresh sent of spring floated around the room and sunlight played over the walls._

_Hermione let the tears slide down her face as she stepped forward and climbed onto the be__d wrapping her arms around the only person__ it seemed that __had ever truly __cared for her. She sobbed and buried her he__ad in the man's side and held to him tightly. M__ayb__e, she thought__ if she held on tight enough they could go back in time or maybe she just wished that he would take her with him__ wherever he was going it would be better the__re with him then it would be alone anywhere else__. She stayed there for so long just waiting for something to happen, she didn't move for __hours__ until the sky was pink, yellow and orange painted with __the perfect__ sunset. She looked up and then back at her father._

_"Look daddy, it's so beautiful. Perfect. But you're missing it. This one's even better than the ones we watched in the garden. It's the best birthday present I could ever imagine.__ It will never be complete without you though. __" __she brushed her fingers lightly across his cold cheek._

_She looked at him and then up to the sunset and felt the tears once again rolling down her face, she could almost feel __the wind cradle her in its arms__. She knew it had to be her __father;__ he was the only one who knew about the sunsets._

_"My dream is over Dad, Life was to perfect it had to end. It could__n't have__ always be this wonderful…" she could hear him then, chuckling softly and he would lift her up like before and twirl around, she was soaring __now; __through her pe__rfect hallucination__. Then as soon as it had come it had gone and she was in __the room again. She reached down and took his hand placing it over her heart and then pressed her hand to his chest and smiled._

_"Remember Dad? __Like__ we always do…" __she squeezed his hand a little tighter wishing that she had had the chance to say goodbye for real. _

_"Goodbye for now…"she whispered and let his hand fall back __ to its resting place on the bed and drew hers back__ slipping off the bed quietly__ as if not to wake him__, as if he was only sleeping__. She looked back at the sunset one l__ast time and then turned and walked slowly out of the room__ letting the door close behind her with a soft click._

_END FLASHBACK_

_Please review and tell me how you like it if you have any suggestions please share!!!_


	2. Chapter 1

Hermione Granger winced as she braced herself on the wall of the shower. She slowly rand the sponge over her skin raw and red from the scalding water and relentless scrubbing. She finally dropped the sponge and soap satisfied with her work. She slowly got out of the shower and wrapped the towel around her wincing again as her towel touched the wounded flesh. She went to the full length mirror and inspected the damage.

She looked over herself and shook her head. Hermione Granger was not the girl standing in front of her this girl was different. This girl had waist length black rippled hair, Hermione granger had bushy brown curls. The mirror girl had empty ice blue eyes; Hermione Granger's eyes were cinnamon brown and full of life and strength. The girl in the mirror had an athletic body, sinewy and toned with mussels, Hermione Granger was just average. But the biggest difference was the girl in the mirror no matter how physically strong and beautiful she was there was no mistaking the broken look that lived in the girls eyes. Hermione Granger was strong and proud and never ashamed.

The worst thing Hermione knew when she looked in the mirror though was that the girl in the mirror with the broken eyes and long midnight hair that fell like a screen in silk waves around her was the real Hermione Granger. The other was just a result of a glamour charm that she put on herself at the since the age of eleven. The real Hermione was the one whose skin was littered with the bruises; she was the one with the scars running up and down her arm and across her chest. The real Hermione was the one with the screwed up life and all the problems.

Today was the day that she left for Hogwarts; her last year at school was going to be ok as long as no one found out her secret. But how could they after all this time. It was almost over she would have to deal with the breaks but then after she graduated she was free and she would finally have a chance to get her life back together.

Hermione sighed and turned from the mirror to finish her last minute packing and get ready to go. She had to remember to do the glamour charm when she was out of the house and before she got to kings-cross. Yes, this year was going to be ok, it was almost over she just had a little longer.

Hermione didn't see Harry or any of the Weaslys when she got to the station so she continued right to the heads compartment to put her stuff away. She was early and she had the whole train ride to look for them once she and the head boy were done meeting with their heads and then the prefects.

She settled herself down in the compartment on one of the two benches on either side of the small room. She looked out the window and watched all of the people hustling and bustling around to get either themselves or their children on the train. She paused on some of the parties most likely with first years due to the teary relative and shaken looking younger children.

Suddenly the compartment door slammed open producing a large crash that made her jump and whip around to see who it was that had disturber the refreshing silence. She was met with a very unappealing sight.

"Of course it's Granger; no one else would have had a chance with little miss goody-two-shoes have-to-be-the-best-at-everything around to steal their thunder." Draco Malfoy was standing in the doorway with his trunk and pinned to the front of his robes was a pin that almost exactly matched the one that was pinned to the front of hers.

Hermione just looked at him with an expression of pure repulse then turned back to staring blankly out the window deciding that it would be in her advantage to just ignore his presence all together.

"What mudblood, no sarcastic comeback… no embarrassing insults?" Draco, in addition to the amusement and expression of successes painted across his face wore one of pure shock and surprise, maybe even a little bit of amazement.


End file.
